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Aristotle Essay: Aristotle and His Own Science of Logic

Our thinking, our minds are linked with the certain rules of life in our common usual life. All our actions is a reaction to something or someone, that is why the reaction itself is determined by the logical conclusion from the situation. Logical thinking is present in any living being. The earliest human desires such as desire for food, water and shelter caused by the primitive logic. We need to survive and live in any environment. Instinct itself is a kind of logic. Logic has served as a start of humanity’s development. Completely separate science is dedicated to the study of logical thinking. Modern logic consists of two relatively independent sciences: formal and dialectic logic. In one of essays on Aristotle, we will look at the features of Aristotle’s logic. Do you need help in writing of essay? Our professional writing service can definitely help you. You can find more information on our site.

Who Was Aristotle?

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C in the Greek city of Stagira. He had a deep provincial origin because he was a son of a famous physician Nicomachus. Being a doctor in ancient Greece meant to hold a large public position, and Nicomachus was known throughout Macedonia. Aristotle, according to witnesses, was an unpresentable young man. He was thin, had thin legs, little eyes, and often lisped. However, he loved to dress, had several expensive rings on his fingers and made an unusual hairstyle. Growing in the family of physician, and there doing medicine, Aristotle did not become a professional doctor. However, medicine remained for all his life, so close area, so that he gave explanations with examples from medical practice in his philosophical treatises. Arriving from the north of Greece, Aristotle at an early age (in 17 years) entered the school of Plato. He was the first principal Platonist, and subsequently moved away from the strict Platonism. The first works of Aristotle in the walls of Plato's Academy were based on rhetoric, which he subsequently trained for all life. Aristotle met Plato in 364 B.C, and they communicated until Plato’s death, in total 17 years. Aristotle seemed to Plato as proud steed, which has to inhibit with the bridle. Some ancient sources directly speak not only about the discrepancy, and about even disfavor between the two philosophers. Plato strongly disapproved of Aristotle peculiar demeanor on the audience and his passion to dress. Aristotle gave great attention to his appearance, and Plato believed that this is unacceptable to the true philosopher. However, Aristotle seems also boldly attacked Plato, which further led to the creation of Aristotle's own school.

What is the Essence of Aristotle’s Logic?

At first, we should realize the definition of logic. Logic (Greek logike) is a science about the methods of proofs and disproofs, set of scientific theories, each of which discusses certain methods of proofs and refutations. There are inductive and deductive, classical, intuitionistic, structural, modal and so on kinds of logic. All these theories share a commitment to the cataloging of such methods of ratiocination, by which true judgments-assumptions lead to the true judgments-consequences. Cataloging is carried out, as a rule, within the logical computations. Logic applications in computer science, automata theory, computational mathematics and linguistics play a special role in accelerating of scientific and technical progress. Not so many Aristotle essays are dedicated to his “child” – logic. It sounds strange, but the name of logic as science was not given by Aristotle, but by Alexander of Aphrodisias. He did it due to commenting the works of the philosopher. However, logic almost reached perfection during the life of Aristotle. Philosopher’s influence in the field of metaphysics had been lost until the thirteen century, but his authority in logic remained. It is interesting that even today many teachers of logic as a science often reject the discoveries of modern logic and stick to a strange persistence system, which is about as outdated as the Ptolemaic astronomy. Although we cannot deny the fact that the foundations of logic for a long time remain unchanged, and Aristotle created them. Aristotle saw the logic not as an independent philosophical doctrine, but rather as a necessary tool of all sciences and philosophy in particular. The concept of logic as “weapon” seemed to form from own Aristotle’s ideas. Aristotle divided all philosophy into two parts – theoretical philosophy, which seeks to achieve truth and independent of anyone’s desire and practical philosophy, which occupies human mind and aspirations, which together try to understand and reach the essence of the human good. In short, Aristotle’s logic studies the main types of being, that fall under separate concepts and definitions. It studies also about the conjunction and separation of these types of being, which are expressed in judgment. It also learns about the ways, in which the mind by means of racionation can go from known truth to unknown truth. Are you interested in getting good essay? You will be pleased by our services. Thinking is the essence of logic. According to Aristotle, thinking is not the design or creation by the mind some of the new entity, but rather assimilation in the act of thinking to something located outside. The concept is the identification of the mind with some form of being, and judgment - the expression of conjunction of being’s types in reality. Science is led to the correct conclusions by the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle, because being is obeyed to these principles. According to Aristotle, all statements of language anyway refer to the being, but the Aristotelian category of entity is the closest thing to the being. All other categories, such as categories of quality, quantity, relation, place, time, action, suffering state, owning are correlated with being through category of entity. Entity, according to the Aristotle, has self-dependence, contrary to its conditions and relations and which are variable, and depends on the time, place, from relationships with other entities, etc. This entity can be expressed in the concept and is the subject of strict knowledge – science. Speaking about entity, we understand the essence of things, so you need to understand what the existence of things is. Aristotle seeked to know the essence of things through their generic concept, so the attitude “from general to private” was in his focus. According to Aristotle, we give definition of thing, the concept of things due to revealing of thing’s essence. Aristotle created first system in the history of logic – syllogistic, the main task of which he saw in establishment of rules in order to obtain reliable conclusions from certain assumptions. Center of Aristotle’s logic is the doctrine about ratiocination and evidence, based on the principle “from general to private”. Formal logic, created by Aristotle, served for centuries as a main source of scientific evidence. It is obvious, that Aristotle was a significant person in ancient history. You can read about significant person of 20-th century in essay on Adolf Hitler.

Conclusion

In summary, we can say that Aristotle’s logic is an organic part of his systematic innovative, philosophical belief. It helps to understand a lot of his philosophy, even his theology. The great merit of Aristotle is in that he first made the subject of methods of ratiocination as a subject of scientific research, mainly methods of reasoning is as integral formations, not just certain components of arguments. Thanks to the philosophy of Aristotle, many sciences got its logical rethinking. It is possible that the creation of such a science was the first step in an attempt to concretize the world, to make it more logical, more rational and orderly, and therefore more understandable.